1 Quadrans Wheel / Axe

Etruscan aes grave production was already an archaism by the time these were struck — Rome had been minting struck bronze for years, and the Greek cities of southern Italy had long abandoned cast coinage entirely. These northern mints persisted with the laborious sand-casting process out of conservatism or geographic isolation, producing denominations in the old libral weight standard even as that standard was collapsing under the financial strain of the First Punic War. The attribution to an uncertain Etruscan mint reflects genuine scholarly disagreement; the wheel type has been associated with several inland Etruscan centers without consensus.